Pastor Matt's Podcasts

In this sermon, we take a closer look at Genesis 15:6 "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." This is one of the most important scriptures to our understanding of our salvation. The imputation of righteousness to Abraham, and sin to Jesus is explained in 2 Corinthians 5:21 "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." The way to salvation in the Old Testament and the New Testament alike was through the work of Jesus.

After Abraham came back from victory and retrieved his nephew Lot, the king of Sodom came to greet him, but then so did Melchizedek. Melchizedek, a reflection of Jesus, gave Abraham communion and a blessing. Abraham in return gave Melchizedek a tithe of all he had. The king of Sodom on the other hand, made demands on Abraham and would allow him to keep the goods that he took as booty. This is the difference between God's way and man's way. God gives while man takes. Both offer a way or a means of salvation, but only one is able to give salvation unto life.

When Lot, his family, and all his goods were taken captive during a rebellion, Abraham went and got him back. Significantly, Abraham's trained men also routed the armies of the tyrant who took him. Lot's choice to live in a place that compromised God's ethics caused him to be taken captive and ruled by a tyrant. A nation's morality will determine what form of government they will live under. It is the church's responsibility to preach, teach, and to show the biblical manner in which we are to live. As the church goes, so goes the nation.

In this sermon we examine the separation of Lot from Abraham. Lot was given the choice of land, he chose the plains of Sodom, there the men were exceedingly wicked. Lot lacked discernment in his choice. He desired the promised land without Christ. We look at a few reasons why Lot lacked this discernment and it how serves as a caution to us today.

In Genesis Chapter 12 we read that Abraham was given some amazing promises by God. As soon as Abraham got to the promised land in order to receive those promises, he ran into problems. In this sermon we discuss those problems, their purposes and how that relates to our own Christian walk. We don't pray for problems, we pray for blessings. However, God doesn't give us the promises without us learning the lessons of the problems.

In this sermon, we study God's promises to Abraham and see just how they are also God's promises to the spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham (Galatians 3). These promises take faith, faith in Christ and faith that God will fulfill them. As Christians, we can embrace these promises as our own, that God will extend, expand and build on the promises of Abraham to include the world, and all the Gentile nations.

Since the Christian has been grafted into the people of God (Galatians 3), we can receive the promises to Abraham as our promises to us as well. This also means that what Abraham went through, we can fully expect to go through like-trials and testings as well.
This first sermon on the story of Abraham examines the call of God on His life. He did not choose God, God chose him. Likewise, when God has a call on the Christian's life it is the same scenario. God calls, we respond. Knowing that God has a call on our lives and it is not our "choice", then we also know that the trials and testings of the faith we go through are to strengthen that faith and it will see us through.

Since the Fall of man in the Garden, man has always had a dream of being like God, determining for himself good and evil. In man's rebellion, the descendants of Nimrod attempted just that in the building of the Tower of Babel. They rebelled against the mandate to fill the earth and instead built a centralized city that they may have all power and authority for themselves.
Man is still attempts to centralize authority, resulting in the tyranny by the few and the slavery of the many. But just like the story of Babel, God's will shall be accomplished, God will come down and scatter man from his unified dream. God's government for man is a decentralized government, it is localism.

God instituted slavery as a consequence for those who had contempt for authority. Ham exposed the nakedness of his father, Noah, to his brothers. His mocking and scorning revealed the contempt he had for biblical authority. Noah cursed Ham's youngest son, Canaan, because Ham was Noah's youngest son. This was perfect justice. It was the descendants of Canaan that would serve the descendants of Noah's other two sons, Shem and Japhath. This reveals the importance of honoring those in authority.

Once Noah and his family came out of the Ark they had the daunting task of building a new civilization. The first thing Noah did when he came off the ark was to build an altar and sacrifice one of each of the clean animals. This pleased the Lord and turned away His wrath, so immediately God promised never again to destroy every living thing on earth.
But God also instituted three things to help man take dominion over the earth. First was family, then dominion over nature, and lastly civil government. Noah and his family had everything they needed to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth for the glory of God.